Bravery
by darris108
Summary: Harry and Ginny discuss naming their child after Severus Snape.


_A/N: Hello! Sorry, once again, for not posting anything for ages. It's half term now, so here's a new one-shot, and hopefully there'll be a new chapter of James and the Giant Squid within the next week. Hope you enjoy it! _

"NO BLOODY WAY!"

"Gin, just listen..." pleaded Harry, as his fiery-haired and equally fiery-tempered wife stormed away from him into the living room as quickly as she could in her eight-months pregnant state. Following her, he continued, "Will you at least hear me out?" She wheeled around to face him.

"Harry James Potter, if you think even for a _second_ that I would consider naming one of my children after that... that..." Apparently, words could not express how she felt about the man.

"Whatever you think of him, Ginny, he was the bravest..."

"_The bravest man you ever knew?_" sneered Ginny. She had heard Harry describe Snape as such before, and it never failed to annoy her. "He _tortured_ me, Harry! Tortured all of us! You don't know what it was _like_ that year at Hogwarts! You went off hunting those blasted Horcruxes and left me behind so I'd be _safe_! Yet there I was, with Neville and Luna, enduring the Carrows punishments on a weekly basis. I can't even count the number of times I had the Cruciatus curse used on me, Harry. And it was Snape's doing! He might not have cast the curse, but he was Headmaster. He made the Carrows responsible for all punishments, and he knew _exactly_ what they were doing to us."

There was a long pause before Harry responded.

"I know, Ginny. I _know_. And I'm so, so sorry. If I'd known that's what it would be like for you... well, I don't know what I'd have done. What you've got to understand is that I had no choice. You know me, my stupid noble streak... I _couldn't _have let you come with us. Hell, I didn't even want Ron and Hermione to come! Bloody good thing they shouted me down, or I wouldn't be standing here today, I promise you!"

"That's got nothing to do with -"

"But," continued Harry, interrupting his wife, "_he_ didn't have a choice either, Ginny! If he hadn't convinced Tom that he remained on the Dark Side, we would never have won the war. Dumbledore asked a hell of a lot of Professor Snape. Dumbledore asked Snape to _kill_ him, for Merlin's sake! You don't think he _enjoyed_ it, do you? But if he hadn't done it, then he would have been exposed immediately and Tom would have killed him."

"Oh, I see," said Ginny scornfully. "So, saving his own hide by killing Dumbledore and torturing students makes him _brave_, does it?"

"No, Ginny," replied Harry calmly. "What makes him brave is the fact that he placed himself in constant danger for _years_. When he went back to supposedly rejoin the Death Eaters after Tom's rebirth, he could have been killed straight away. He openly lied to Tom, and he was the only person who ever got away with doing it. He played a huge role in orchestrating Tom's defeat, and he did it right under his nose. And whatever you might think, he protected Hogwarts after Dumbledore died. Tell me this," he said, again speaking over Ginny, who had opened her mouth in outrage at this. "Did any student ever die that year before the Battle?"

Ginny, having closed her mouth, remained silent.

"Don't you think the Carrows would have killed you, Neville and Luna if Snape hadn't ordered them not to? Amicus would have been more than happy to see students punished by Tom instead of him, after Luna stunned Alecto in Ravenclaw tower." Still Ginny said nothing, so Harry continued.

"I think he knew, you know," he said. "I think he knew he wouldn't survive in the end. The odds were piled against him so much, Ginny. But he _kept going_, right to the very end. It would have been so easy for him to turn his back on Dumbledore after his death, to truly rejoin the Death Eaters, and see Tom take over the wizarding world. And by Merlin, the power Tom would have given him if he'd done it, after all he'd done, or appeared to do. But he didn't.

"Severus Snape really was the bravest person I've ever known, Ginny. I never saw eye to eye with him, but that's partly because I never saw the real him. Call me insane - I know Ron will - but I want to name our son after him."

Ginny rubbed her swollen belly absently, fiercely holding Harry's gaze. They were silent for several moments.

"Think about it," implored Harry. Ginny nodded stiffly and turned away.

That evening, Ginny was propped up in bed, reading. She enjoyed reading before going to sleep; she found it removed her from her own troubles and worries for a while. The argument with Harry earlier was still on her mind, and she had hardly spoken to him since. He was still downstairs, watching something on the Muggle television set that resided in their living room.

Although she rarely admitted it, Ginny had somewhat inherited her father's passion for Muggles and their lives. The television had delighted both her and Harry, who had rarely had access to one in his youth despite growing up in a Muggle house, due to the tyranny of his aunt and uncle.

She also read a lot of Muggle literature. Recently, she had developed something of a taste for 20th century American novels, after Hermione had recommended to her _The Great Gatsby_ by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which quickly became her favourite book. She was now reading _To Kill A Mockingbird_. Hermione told her that both the book and its author, Harper Lee, were very well-known in the Muggle world.

She was just coming to the end of a chapter about the death of some horrible old woman called Mrs. Dubose. The young brother and sister who were the main characters of the book both hated her, and Jem, the brother, had destroyed her front garden. As a punishment, he had to go and read to her every day. In Ginny's mind, Mrs. Dubose strongly resembled Professor Umbridge.

Ginny loved the characters in the novel, particularly the father of the two children, whose name was Atticus. He reminded Ginny of her own father - he was rarely angry with his children, but made sure they knew right from wrong. He was also very wise. He was talking now about Mrs. Dubose, who had been suffering a terminal illness for a while before she died.

_"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what."_

Ginny's mind began to wander from the text. Wasn't that what Harry had been saying earlier about Snape? That he knew he couldn't win, but he kept going anyway?

She stared at the page for a while without reading any more, lost in thought. Then, quite suddenly, another passage from earlier in the book swam to the forefront of her mind.

_"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."_

She tried imagining how Snape must have felt, returning to Voldemort's side to spy on him for Dumbledore. Returning to him knowing that Voldemort had ample reason to kill him, and lying to him knowing that Voldemort was possibly the most accomplished Legilimens in wizarding history.

Then she imagined staring into the face of Dumbledore at the top of the Astronomy Tower. Dumbledore was the only man who had ever truly known Snape, yet Snape had been forced to kill him, to cut off his one true ally, and journey forward into the battle against Voldemort quite alone.

Finally, she imagined Snape at Hogwarts, trying desperately to maintain Voldemort's trust, whilst also trying to bring him down. How it must have felt for him when Harry had entered the castle and forced him to flee. Snape knew then that if he couldn't tell Harry what he needed to tell him, Voldemort might never have been defeated. And yet, in the face of impossible odds, conflicting circumstances and, ultimately, Voldemort's snake, he had remained calm, convinced Voldemort, and done what needed to be done.

She heard Harry climbing the stairs, and a second later he walked into their bedroom. He smiled at her tentatively, and looked relieved when she smiled back. He got undressed and put his pyjamas on, then climbed into bed next to her. She lay on her side to talk to him, and he turned to face her too.

"I'm sorry about earlier, Harry," she began.

"It's fine," he said quickly. "You're under a lot of stress right now."

Ginny smiled again and kissed Harry softly. After a couple of seconds, she pulled away, caressing his cheek with her thumb.

"I'd... I'd like to name our son Severus, Harry," she said, and she nearly laughed at the surprise in Harry's face.

"_But_," she continued firmly, "only as a middle name."

Harry chuckled. "That's good enough for me."

_A/N: Please review! ^_^_


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